Split Second

by Catherine Coulter

  Childs picked it up, disgust thick in his voice. “Including interviews with each celebrity attorney who wants to represent her, probono, the jackals. Is that the truth?”

  Coop said, “I will tell you exactly what I know, Ms. Bolger, Mr. Childs, and then we will speak about your conversations with your niece. As a matter of fact, Kirsten’s injuries are responding well to treatment. She may be suffering psychologically, though. She hasn’t said a word for several days. Our psychologists have tried, and can’t get her to speak. Her being depressed would be understandable, what with getting shot and captured, her boyfriend, Bruce Comafield, dead. The last thing she said was to me in Florida when we captured her: ‘I wonder what Daddy would say.’”

  Sentra shook her head, and her voice was filled with sorrow. “Poor child. She idolized the man and started thinking she could talk to him at times. Perhaps it was her reaction to Elizabeth—her mother. How she never said a word about Bundy to Kirsten, indeed, not even telling her who her father was until, well, Kirsten already knew and confronted her.”

  Lucy sat forward in her chair. “You told her, didn’t you, Ms. Bolger? You’re the one who told her about Ted Bundy.”

  Sentra nodded. “She was twenty-five. When she was a child, she asked Elizabeth who her father was, and Elizabeth made up some malarkey about his being a Navy SEAL who was killed in a training accident. In any case, yes, I told her the truth, she deserved to know. All the books talk about how handsome he was, how charming, but that doesn’t begin to capture what Ted really was—a shining star, and so fascinating he could charm the tattoo right off a cell mate.” She shook herself, smiled. “I told her how gaga her mother was over him, how much she wanted to marry him. Now, there’s a dollop of irony.” She paused for a moment, as if considering it, then, “I offered to date him, too, once they broke up, but Ted turned me down, said one woman with my sister’s face was more than enough. I remember telling him he was missing out, big-time, that I was much smarter and more beautiful than Elizabeth, and he laughed, said, ‘No, thanks,’ and then he turned that wicked smile of his on me and said maybe he’d look me up someday.

  “Of course, neither Elizabeth nor I ever heard from him again. He didn’t know he left Elizabeth pregnant with Kirsten. I rather think it was a good thing he didn’t come back. He was killing by then, you know, in 1977, for three years at that point, probably longer, but who knew? If he had come back, would he have killed her? Me?

  “Neither of us knew what he was, what he’d done, until he was caught. We couldn’t believe it, really—that Ted would kidnap young women, rape and torture them, then murder them. What he did to them after that, well, that’s best not visited, is it?”

  Clifford Childs said, “I tell Sentra she and her sister were very lucky. What if Bundy had turned on them, tried to murder them, as he had so many women?” He actually shuddered, tightened his hand on Sentra’s shoulder. “I’ll never forget when we got the news he’d escaped, somewhere in Colorado. It took them forever to catch him, but they did, thank God. When he was finally executed in Florida, I bought up the most expensive champagne in my wine cellar—Krug, Clos du Mesnil, 1980. Sentra, my darling, I remember you didn’t wish to drink much of that precious ambrosia. It was hard for you, wasn’t it?”

  She nodded. “I realized the finality of it, Clifford, that he was truly gone forever. It’s difficult, still, to come to grips with the fact of what Ted actually did to those women, and to realize that the man we knew felt nothing for those women he brutalized, he never saw them as people who just wanted to live, to enjoy life as best they could, to see a future. He lost his conscience, his very soul, I guess you could say, if he ever had either of those commodities in the first place. I would say the evil chemicals twisting his brain finally made him more monster than human. Toward the end, I suspect his wife must have realized that as well, and grew afraid for herself and her daughter. I was relieved when I read she left Florida all those years ago.” She clasped, unclasped her hands, looked at them with finality. “There is nothing more to say. Poor Kirsten has his blood, the same insanity flows through her.”

  Vincent Delion spoke for the first time: “Did you know Kirsten had already killed at least six women here in the San Francisco area years ago, Ms. Bolger?”

  “No,” Sentra said without hesitation, and Coop wondered if she could be that good a liar. He let it go.

  He said, “Kirsten knew all about Starke Prison, what happened to her father there. I think she was headed there when we captured her.”

  “Do you believe she will speak again, Agent McKnight?”

  “Yes, of course she will,” Coop said. “All of us are hoping she will tell us where she buried the other women she murdered before she left San Francisco and went on her rampage. Can you imagine being the parents of a fifteen-year-old girl who is simply gone one day, who never returns? Perhaps you could speak to Kirsten, encourage her to tell you where she buried these women.”

  “I doubt she would tell me, Agent. Perhaps it is best to let them lie in peace.”

  Coop could only stare at her. “Tell me, Ms. Bolger, are you Kirsten’s mother?”

  “I? No, my dear sister is indeed her mother. Ah, I see. You’re wondering why Kirsten and I were always so close.”

  Delion sat forward in his chair.

  “She was a disturbed child, and she needed me. I believed I knew her very well.”

  Coop said, “How old was she when you gave her a ring to match Bundy’s?”

  “Ah, so you know about that. Those matching rings—Kirsten told me it was the best present she’d ever get in her entire life, she knew it. She never took off either ring, so far as I know. I gave them both to her when I told her who her father was.

  “Now, about the girls here in San Francisco. I never had a clue she’d killed girls and women before she left. But looking back on it now, knowing what I know now, it doesn’t surprise me. I knew soon enough she was the Black Beret, impossible not to. I did not, however, ever know where she was at any given time. Whenever she called, I counseled her to turn herself in.”

  She paused for a moment, to see if they’d believed that whopper. Fat chance. After a moment, she continued, “I mourned when the FBI released the news that Bruce was dead. I knew she had to be devastated. Kirsten counted on him, you see, couldn’t really manage much in her life without him. They were like two halves of a puzzle that fit together, to produce—well, I suppose, you would have to say that together they produced monstrous evil. Do you think it odd she began killing before she even knew who her father was?”

  Coop said, “You make it sound like an unusual quirk. She was only fifteen when she killed a classmate. We may never know if she killed when she was even younger. Ms. Bolger, it was your legal responsibility to inform us about Kirsten. Why didn’t you? Why did it take us finding Kirsten’s cell and coming to you?”

  Sentra merely raised her hand and laid it lightly over Childs’s. He said promptly, “I have spoken with our attorneys.” He walked around the sofa to stand in front of her. “He tells me you can’t do anything to Sentra. As she said, she did not know where Kirsten was at any point in time; that is all.”

  “Her cell phone—”

  “You will find nothing incriminating in Sentra’s telephone records.”

  Sentra said from behind Childs, “Is there anything else you would like to know, Agents?” She looked down at the beautiful thin watch on her wrist. “The symphony does such a nice job with Mendelssohn. We really must be leaving.”

  “You could go see Kirsten, Ms. Bolger,” Lucy said, “You could encourage her to speak again.”

  Slowly, Sentra Bolger rose. Clifford Childs clasped her hand in his. Over thirty years, Coop thought, these two were the age of his parents, but somehow so different—why hadn’t they ever married? He turned to see that Clifford Childs’s sons and their wives had filed quietly into the immense living room, as if summoned by their queen for departure. Did they all want to protect this woman? It w
as as George Lansford had told them: the Childs family seemed to adore Sentra Bolger. Coop imagined Childs himself would gladly kill for her as well, if it came down to it.

  They rose.

  “I am fine,” Sentra said toward the group, then said to Coop and Lucy, “Kirsten doesn’t need me. I know her. By next week, she will be speaking again, and she will be enraged. She will be judged sane, and she will go to trial and she will be given the death penalty, like her father, despite all the self-promoting lawyers who will demand to represent her. Her appeals will stretch on for years and years, probably for long after I’m dead and forgotten.”

  “You will never be forgotten!” One of the young men hurried to her side, a lovely cashmere shawl in his hands. She smiled up at him as he placed it over her shoulders. He looked the picture of his father. “That is very kind of you, Basil.” She smiled at the knot of people around her. “Now, Inspector, Agents, I wish you a pleasant evening. Do you know, after this tragedy, I look around and realize how very lucky I am. I have the most wonderful family in the world.” Her slightly mad smile took in all the people standing protectively around her in the vast living room.

  CHAPTER 81

  North Beach, San Francisco

  Sacred Mount Cemetery

  Thursday morning

  More than a hundred people stood graveside at the burial of Arnette Carpenter, many of them members of the media. Her body had been found three days before, the autopsy showing that she’d been bludgeoned to death. They found her skeleton exactly where Kirsten had told Coop she’d buried her.

  Lucy studied Roy Carpenter’s face. There was a blank tightness around his eyes and his mouth, but there was something else, too—Lucy saw some measure of peace. Arnette had been found; she’d come home. They still didn’t know where to look for the bodies of Kirsten’s other victims. They were hopeful the profiler visits from the FBI would yield some results. Maybe Kirsten would eventually tell them to cut some sort of deal. And they could finally be laid to rest.

  A bagpiper, standing solitary on a small hillock at the edge of the cemetery, played “Amazing Grace” at the close of the service. Everyone turned toward the haunting sounds that always seemed to pull people deep into themselves. Then the last notes sort of drifted away, swallowed by the thick fog that was rolling in through the Golden Gate. Lucy realized she was crying, both for Arnette Carpenter and for her own father, gone so recently, and there was Miranda, who’d died for nothing. And she marveled at how her life had changed irrevocably. She held Coop’s hand tightly. He looked down at her, and she searched his eyes for any sign of discomfort. He’d said nothing, but she’d seen him lightly rubbing his side.

  She wanted the bagpiper to play more, but he, too, seemed to fade slowly into the fog and disappear. There was a collective murmur from the people standing near Arnette Carpenter’s grave. Coop and Lucy laid a red rose atop the casket.

  Coop pulled Lucy close to his side. Coop saw Sentra Bolger and Clifford Childs standing off at a distance, both in unremitting black, holding hands.

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  EPILOGUE

  One week later

  Lucy stood on the walkway of the Markham Bridge overlooking the Potomac. It was very early. The sky was overcast with heavy gray clouds, and the wind off the water was sharp, stinging her face. There was only one lone runner, and she was at the far end of the bridge. A single van drove past, then she was alone.

  She stared down into the dark, slow-moving water, wondering how deep it was here.

  She pulled the necklace from beneath her turtleneck, opened the clasp, and let the ring slide onto her palm.

  She clutched the ring in her hand. It was hers, passed down to her from her grandfather, long dead. She was responsible for it now, she alone. She thought of Uncle Alan, Aunt Jennifer, and Court, devastated by grief, not really understanding, and they never would. They were refusing to speak to her, still blamed her for what happened. Uncle Alan hadn’t left his wife. She wondered if Uncle Alan would ever come to see that Miranda’s suicide wasn’t her fault, if they could ever be any sort of a family again.

  There hadn’t been a formal funeral for Miranda, only a graveside service that was small and private. Her aunt had invited her to the cemetery, but she’d stood back, just as Sentra Bolger and Clifford Childs had done at Arnette Carpenter’s graveside service, and watched her remaining family grieve.

  She opened her hand and studied the ring, felt it pulse warm in her palm. She whispered, “If you never existed, none of this would have happened.”

  Dillon would be dead. She might be dead, too, if she hadn’t had the ring when she’d escaped from Miranda.

  She looked at the three red carnelians, duller still in the gray morning light, and at the word SEFYLL—was it a curse or a salvation?

  It had cost her grandfather his life, and Miranda.

  Throughout the centuries, how many other lives had the ring taken? Had it changed history itself? For the better or for worse? She didn’t know, couldn’t know.

  She had honored Miranda’s wish that she not try to use the ring when she shot herself, however bloody and useless trying might have been. Miranda wanted to make her own choice, but she never seemed to realize that everyone should have that right, the right to make their own choices, and live or die by them. Miranda made her realize the future should be determined by everyone, not by any one person, whether a well-meaning person trying to do the right thing or a dangerous one like Miranda who could change the world in unimaginable and tragic ways. No one should have that much power.

  She squeezed the ring tightly, then stared at the water flowing beneath her. “Good-bye,” she said, and dropped it into the water. It didn’t even make a ripple in the surface.

  She turned to see Coop standing next to his Corvette some twenty feet away. He’d driven her here. She knew in her heart he wouldn’t ask why she’d come. He would accept her and love her, and they’d build a life together, and hopefully it would be a good one.

  She waved at him. She never looked back.

  Also by Catherine Coulter

  THE FBI THRILLERS

  Twice Dead: Riptide and Hemlock Bay (2011)

  Whiplash (2010)

  KnockOut (2009)

  TailSpin (2008)

  Double Jeopardy: The Target and The Edge (2008)

  Double Take (2007)

  The Beginning: The Cove and The Maze (2005)

  Point Blank (2005)

  Blowout (2004)

  Blindside (2003)

  Eleventh Hour (2002)

  Hemlock Bay (2001)

  Riptide (2000)

  The Edge (1999)

  The Target (1998)

  The Maze (1997)

  The Cove (1996)